Royal Guard
by sammy55
Summary: After the curse breaks, Regina decides to honor her guardsmen from the Enchanted Forest for their service. Emma stumbles upon her and it leads to an interesting realization on Emma's part. Pre-Swan Queen if you squint.


**Finally finished this Swan Queen one-shot! The idea came from a Tumblr post going around, with Regina addressing some of her guards by name. Hope you guys enjoy! **

**I don't own anything OUAT.**

The glares directed at her had slowly lost their fierceness as time went by. Instead, Regina was just ignored by the majority of the citizens of Storybrooke, unless she was doing something for them as part of her rehabilitative community service.

At first, she had balked at the idea, only agreeing when it was made clear that she would be punished, and her other option was time in the tiny jail in town. Still, for the first couple months, her pride took a daily beating - several of the townspeople coming to jeer at the once mighty Queen forced to do peasant work. But now that she was only continuing to help some of the oldest residents the novelty had worn off.

Surprisingly, she found herself enjoy her time spent assisting those in need. It made her feel lighter, more like the girl she had been with Daniel.

It had been hard to stomach at first - her fall from glory - but the first time one of the old villagers she was assisting brought her out a glass of lemonade in thanks, she had to turn away to hide suspiciously bright eyes.

She had managed to do enough community service to satisfy Snow White and Prince Charming. They no longer questioned her every move and relented on visitation rights for Henry.

Of course, their approval was only to make them feel as if they had any authority. Two weeks after Regina had begun her community service, Emma had dropped off Henry for a few hours, shrugging off her mother's protests. "If the entire purpose of this is to bring Regina to the 'good' side, then there is nothing more likely to do so than Henry."

The brunette and her son had sat through several awkward and silent meals before beginning the slow and painful process of regaining their previous relationship. Several nights, Regina would fall asleep with tears drying on her cheeks, wondering if she had lost her son forever.

In the end, it was Emma who indirectly caused Henry to forgive Regina. Unused to being a full-time parent, Henry quickly grew frustrated at her many mistakes, realizing how good he had it with Regina. Now the two women had worked together to create a schedule, sharing their son and getting along rather well.

So while Regina was slowly mending relationships with present members of the Storybrooke community, something had been bothering for her sometime now. There was one group of people that she had yet to honor.

Her loyal guardsmen.

Most had been killed or imprisoned when she was exiled. Though she had looked, none of them had appeared in Storybrooke, and she was forced to assume that none were left alive.

So early one morning, she decided to do something about it, traveling alone deep into the woods behind her house until she found a large open field. She stood in the center, allowing her mind to clear and took a deep breath before raising her hands and allowing the image her had in her mind to flow into her hands and out through her magic.

The ground beneath her feet began to rumble, and sweat began to drip down her temples. She kept her eyes closed in order to maintain her concentration, eye brows furrowing as something tickled on the edge of her magical senses. But she was determined to finish this, even if Snow had come to scold her.

Finally, as her legs trembled from exhaustion, she let her hands drop, cutting off the flow of magic. She quickly wiped her face off and opened her eyes, looking around with a smug grin.

Regina now stood in the center of a small graveyard. More than 50 headstones surrounded her, each bearing the name of one of her loyal guardsmen. She walked through the rows of identical headstones, mentally checking off names in her head to ensure that each man had been honored.

A branch broke in the woods behind her, and she spun around, eyebrows raising as she saw the Sheriff trip her way into the clearing. She waited for the blonde woman to shuffle her way towards her, simply waiting for her to speak first.

Emma rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, staring wide eyed around the field. "Someone reported an earthquake in the middle of the forest and suspected you. I thought it would be a better idea for me to find you than some vengeful villager."

Regina nodded and kept her voice calm as she replied "Understandable. As you can see, nothing untoward is going on."

Emma nodded, before glancing at the brunette. "What were you doing exactly? Who are these tombstones for?" She looked at the one in front of her. "Who is Berkley?"

Regina allowed a small smile to cross her face. Berkley had been one of her favorites, a simple peasant boy with an affinity for the sword. He was one of her greatest protectors, but his simple mind sometimes betrayed him and he had a bad habit of blurting out the obvious - something the Queen found endearing. But Emma didn't need to know this. "He was one of my guardsmen. They all were. They were killed or imprisoned for their service towards me when Snow White took the kingdom. I believe that they should be honored as well."

A look of disbelief crossed Emma's face. "How many were there?"

"57."

Her eyebrows shot up and she began to walk around, looking at each name. "And you remembered all of their names? 3 decades later?"

A scoff escaped Regina's mouth before she could stop it. "I realize that your parents probably paint me as some uncaring, evil woman, but those men served me loyally for years. I knew their names, their lives before coming to me, their dreams. When I lost my temper, they paid the price. But they still served me and when your mother exiled me, those who were still living were imprisoned for the remainder of their lives. Their loyalty cost them their freedom, and I am grateful for them."

She would have continued her impassioned rant, but the somber look on Emma's face stopped her. The blonde woman was standing near the edge of the field, in front of the headstone closet to the tree line. This one was different. Instead of the generic headstone, this one was a small stone wolf, about hip height, its small head thrown back in a howl. One eye was a glittering ruby, the other an onyx stone. Underneath, written in flowing script was a name that made Emma swallow harshly.

_Graham._

Regina slowly walked over to stand with the other woman, nodding to herself in satisfaction. The wolf had taken a significant amount of concentration to create, but she felt she owed it to her huntsman to give him something more. She turned her head towards Emma, her hand instinctively finding the small stone head and stroking it. "Graham was my royal huntsman for many years."

Emma nodded, eyes still fixed on the statue. "That's the wolf that made me run my car off the road my first night here in Storybrooke. He was part of Graham's pack, right?"

"Yes. I'm not sure what happened to it after Graham's death, but I imagine he didn't survive as a lone wolf for very long." The topic of conversation was making Regina nervous. The truth behind Graham's death was one of the few secrets that she was desperate to keep to herself. Especially because Emma controlled her access to Henry. If the blonde ever discovered the truth behind his death, she would never see Henry again.

If the fear of losing her son wasn't blocking her voice, she would have blurted out the truth by now. Her actions that night were one of the few things she felt shame over, agonizing over her actions late at night when her demons came out to play, guilt eating away at her. It was hardly Graham's fault for being drawn to the Savior, but Regina had reached the end of her rope that day. Her carefully crafted control broke, and she reacted impulsively.

Thankfully, Emma had already moved on from the emotional overload that thinking of Graham usually brought on. She turned and looked over the field, looking at Regina out of the corner of her eyes. "I think you should bring Henry here."

Regina turned back towards Emma, an incredulous look on her face. "Why should I do that? This was supposed to be personal, for my eyes only. Besides, Henry hates when I use magic. I would rather not ruin my relationship with my son once again."

"The biggest problem is that Henry still sees you as the Evil Queen sometimes."

"Perhaps you missed the memo, but I was the Evil Queen."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Yes, but that's not the point. Henry barely knows who you were as a person when you ruled. If you bring him here and show him this, what you've done and how you cared about your guards… It may be enough to change his black and white view of the world. And he needs to do that because this isn't fairytale land and everything is a shade of grey here."

If she was truthful, Regina realized the wisdom of the blonde's idea. Henry sometimes treated her and who she was in the past as two distinctly different individuals. She knew it wasn't healthy, and he still sometimes eyed her with mistrustful eyes. But bringing him here would also lead to questions that Regina didn't want to answer.

Not all of her guards had died of natural causes. Several of them had died by her own hand, heart ripped out or neck snapped. If she brought Henry here, he would inevitably ask how they had died and she couldn't lie to him - not anymore.

But she couldn't lose him.

"Regina? Regina, it was just a suggestion. You don't have to."

Emma's worried voice broke her from her thoughts. She looked down to see her hands shaking violently and she wrapped her arms around her middle to try to steady herself. "Not - not now. I can't lose him now."

She avoided confused green eyes until the other woman relented. "Fine. It's your choice. Just think about it… Are you ready to go?"

Regina nodded and turned to walk with Emma back through the woods. Before she crossed the tree line, she glanced at the woman beside her. It was nice to have an ally for once, Emma trusting her to do the right thing.

She might even consider the Sheriff a friend.

**Let me know what you guys think! More one-shots coming soon - several of them are already half finished.**


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